


Like Poison In Your Veins

by daggerpen



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fratricide, Gen, Patricide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 18:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4888105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daggerpen/pseuds/daggerpen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bhelen has his eyes. The story of a king's legacy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Poison In Your Veins

His hands smell like wet sand.

Endrin must be imagining it. The poison is long since clear from his quarters, safely - ha - in possession of the man who will be his brother's killer. A convicted murderer, the kind of man who does this sort of thing all the time. No one will ever believe otherwise.

His hands are clean.

He had found the recipe in old records, a simple distillation from the bed of a lake. It had been a marvel that he discovered it, that it had been just in time for his mission into the Deep Roads, past a forgotten reservoir miraculously free of the Darkspawn Taint. What else could it be? What else but a sign?

His brother would be a terrible king. A king, a true king must be ruthless, must make his heart into stone for the good of Orzammar. No less is required to keep order. No less is required to keep the Darkspawn at bay. This Endrin tells himself, pacing his quarters as he waits for morning, waits for the Proving to begin. For the will of the Ancestors to be known.

Forgive him. Forgive him, for what he has set in motion. Forgive him, that he looks into the mirror and sees only resolve. Forgive him.

But his hands are clean.

* * *

Trian will be a terrible king.

This Endrin knows with growing certainty, watching the boy stumble through every intrigue he's ever fallen into. He has no talent for people, no more than Endrin's late brother had ever had, and he can only cling to propriety to make up for it. Endrin can’t imagine it will be enough, not when, children though they both are, his youngest already outshines his heir.

The youngest has his jaw, he thinks.

* * *

Bhelen has his eyes.

Bhelen has his Caste, too, an accident of birth Endrin curses behind his teeth. His mother was never supposed to bear a son, bring weight to the disposable, intermittent affair of comfort, release from the stress of the throne after the death of his late wife.

Dwarven children are to be celebrated, he knows. But he has heirs enough already, and when Endrin’s newest son stares up at him, his stomach sinks like a stone in water. 

* * *

They’d held a Proving yesterday.

He wants to laugh at that, a bitter, choking urge that holds tears behind its edge. The glory of battle, where the Ancestors make their judgements known.

What a fool he has been. What a fool he is, standing here with Trian’s blood cold on his hands as he watches kinslayers and traitors lie to him. As he weighs his heart against his house and knows which must come first.

Because Endrin knows the look of a killer. He sees it in the mirror every day, after all.

He knows which child has his eyes.

* * *

Endrin is tired of his crown.

Endrin is tired of duty. Endrin is tired of grief. Endrin is tired of appearances. He had sent his heart into the Deep Roads for the sake of his family name, and he is tired of it all.

Bhelen thinks he is mad. He no longer cares. Fratricide has beget fratricide, and treason, treason, and he has sacrificed his only legacy worth having.

He knows, when it comes. He can see the resolve in Bhelen’s eyes. But he is sick with grief and loss, and when he eats it tastes like sand in his mouth.

It’s funny, really. For all his favor, in the end, Bhelen is his truest heir. He deserves no better in his last moments.

He tells Harrowmont to take the throne. It can bring only tragedy, when kinslayers take the crown.

 


End file.
